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Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Yes, I have a stockpile...No, I'm not a hoarder!!

(Unless you count pumpkin and Scentsy, that is!)

As most of you have probably figured out if you've read my blog for long, I'm a coupon-er!! (Pre Extreme Couponing too!) While this is by no means a coupon blog, I've been asked often how I get such great deals etc so I decided I'd write just a few posts on the world of coupons. I am going to start by sharing a little bit about my own personal stockpile, with pictures!

Now, I don't have a huge crazy stockpile as seen on 'that show'. I don't buy 100s of one item, just because I can, nor do I have more than we can use before things expire. As you will see, most of what I have is health/beauty and cleaning supplies. This was built up slowly, never buying more than 4 at any given time (and even that was rare!). It actually took me awhile to be comfortable with the stockpile. One of the reasons I coupon is because I have a major anxiety about spending money...anything over $20 seems like a lot to me! So my shopping lists pre-stockpiling tended to be the essentials that we needed at that given time, coupon or not. I would feel that if I were buying something I did not yet need because it was on sale or I had a coupon, I was still spending more money at that time than I needed to (even though I knew in my head that it was smarter and cheaper in the long run). Thankfully, I have gotten over that, for the most part!! By using coupons with sales and buying when I could get them cheap rather than when I needed them, I have saved a TON of money...and I don't have to worry about running out of something...it's a win/win! If you haven't embraced the stockpile yet, I encourage you to!

My upstairs bathroom. The canvas bin is filled with razors (mostly free, some just super cheap!) The basket has toothbrushes-all free! These mouthwashes are a great example of how a stockpile can save you money also. These were on sale for $2.99, with a coupon for $2 off, making them 99 cents each! These are normally about $5 EACH, I got 5 bottles for the price of 1!! As you can see, I have lots of shampoo and conditioner and various hair products also. None of these were over $1, many of them free! All of my deodorants were free as well. (Many of these you saw in Mailbox Monday!) Overall, I am very proud of this portion of my stock!

This is also in my upstairs master bath. Nothing too interesting here, but a LOT of tissues, ready for the cold season. There are 11 boxes total here, plus 4-5 boxes open throughout my house. I also just gave a few boxes to my son's class too! Hopefully these will last us a bit...but the colds have already been starting here, so we'll see. The Puffs were a great buy, they were on sale for $3.50 or so for a 3-pack, with a 25 cent coupon, but inside were MORE coupons for various P&G products, like Charmin and Puffs and Crest toothpaste...they paid for themselves! I also have toilet paper in each bathroom as well...That's one thing you never want to run out of, right?

My cleaning closet (in my laundry room). As you can see, I have a LOT of the Tide Stain Release. I love this stuff, and I made sure to stock up when they had the $3 coupon (and there was a sale for $4.50-ish!) So glad I did since the recent coupons have only been $1.50 off!

My food pantry, as you can see, it's not nearly as impressive (in my opinion, but well stocked nonetheless! You can't see all of it here, but I have lots of pasta (we eat pasta at least once a week usually, so I try to keep plenty on hand!), canned veggies, diet cokes, etc. I actually need a bigger pantry, but we make it work!!

Part 2 of the pantry. Breakfast foods and snacks. My snack shelf is where you really see the stocking! There are about 5 boxes cheese nips (90 cents each, with a 75 cent off 2 coupon), 13 boxes of fruit snacks- most of them Thomas. I wish I could say I got a better deal on these, but really, most of them were 2.16 each with a coupon for 50 cents off 2. A few were $1 off each, making them 1.16 a piece though, and the non-Thomas ones were 50 cents each. I could have gotten much cheaper fruit snacks, BUT of course, my little guy is obsessed with Thomas so if it makes him happy, it's worth the little extra! I've had to grab these when I could though, apparently they're quite popular! There are SEVERAL bags of pretzels also, most of them 19 cents a piece, and somewhere behind there was some free popcorn also.

And finally...napkins, ziploc baggies, foil, etc... There are several packages of Bounty napkins behind there...47 cents each! The ziploc bags came out to about 50 cents each as well!! See, nothing crazy, but it works for my family and has saved us a ton of money! I love seeing other people's photos so if you have a link, feel free to leave it in a comment! If you don't coupon and want to start, or are just starting, what questions do you have that would be helpful? As I said, I'm not a coupon blogger, but I do love helping others save money any way I can! I hope you enjoyed!!